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Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke gave Entertainment Weekly a first look at her diary from the blockbuster hit in this week's issue. She talks about why she left the franchise she loved and how painful it is for her to see the new director getting more than what she's been promised.

She's been in negotiations with Summit Entertainment to direct the highly anticipated Twilight sequel, New Moon. Summit offered Hardwicke a huge raise which according to her, "More money than I or anyone in my family has ever seen.” But there's a catch. She was told that she'd be working on a tight deadline a modest budget. She therefore declined the offer and told the studio to find a new director. “I was devastated,” she says. “I really did feel a strong connection to the people around the world that liked the movie – and to Stephenie and the actors. But I just didn’t think I could make a good movie under those circumstances.”

Even before she left the franchise, Hardwicke has been discussing the posibility of Twilight: Director’s Notebook with Stephenie Meyer's publisher from Little Brown and Company last summer. Then Twilight took the over the box office, earning almost $70 million on its opening weekend and $356 million worlwide. When the movie made enough money, they thought it was worth it,” says Hardwicke. “They said, ‘Now you have three and a half weeks to do it!’ And I was like, Okay, I’m just going to keep writing until they rip this out of my hands!”

New Moon is currently in pre-production under new director Chris Weitz (Golden Compass, About a Boy) and is expected to start filming in March in Vancouver and Italy. But according to Hardwicke “I know the budget they were talking about with me – they’ve already gone way beyond that, I’m optimistic that it’s going to be great, and I’m sad that it didn’t work out for me to do it,” she said. “But I’ll do something else cool.”